It's Time to Talk about Race at Work

CHAPTER 7Why Your Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Efforts Haven't Done the Job

Many companies now have Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) departments and/or top executives who are responsible for creating a more diverse and equitable workplace. That's a good thing. It's encouraging to see so many organizations prioritizing this and making real investments in their work cultures. Their intentions are great. But sadly, many are not getting the results they hoped to achieve. Their candidate pipelines aren't as diverse as they hoped. Their C-suite executives are still almost exclusively White and male. The level of engagement among associates is “meh”—OK at best. Why? Why haven't DE&I efforts to date really done the job?

Forbes identifies five big reasons that diversity efforts have not been successful:¹

1. Resistance: Employees are either skeptical of their company's ability to make real change, feel victimized because they are painted as the “villain,” or are singled out as a member of a diverse group. Some research has shown that mandatory diversity training can actually create more friction and animosity toward other employee groups.
2. Poor implementation: Simply having a DE&I program doesn't mean it will be effective. Many diversity training sessions have been classroom-style workshops, focused on changing behaviors, rather than changing the inside of an organization. For example, mentoring and sponsorship have been shown to be highly effective in creating a diverse workplace, ...